Creature with the Blue Hand

I am telling you, I know exactly what most professional athletes feel like the night before the big event.  The anticipation, the buildup, mental adjustments and razor-sharp focus – all fuse together creating the calm before the storm, something quite eerie and uncanny.  No, I don’t have any big events coming up, but that “calm before the storm” has been my pattern on most Saturday evenings, at least for the last few years.

Sunday is my major chance to get a good run in, something that will compensate for all the terrible things I do to my body over the course of the week, the crazy quantities of food I intake, the complete lack of any other exercise, just basically a total bedlam that I call life.  And even though I do manage to squeeze a run or two during the week as well, it’s just not the same, I am always pressed for time, I have a billion things I know I will need to do right afterwards, etc.  My mind is just not there.  However, on Sundays – there is nowhere to rush, no one else to satisfy (not that early anyway), not too many emails coming in yet.  I am able to concentrate and I am able to give it my all.  An hour, an hour and a half or even more – there are no rules.

Lucky me – this morning was the coldest one so far this year, the kind of cold that penetrates, finds its way deep inside and actually burns you!  To add to the fun, these days I only wear one glove, the one on my left hand.  You see, I have to be able to change the songs playing on my iPhone and a gloved-hand simply will not be able to do that.  So, the naked right hand is ready to press all the buttons, but in between the presses it literally freezes to the bone!  It tries to hide inside the sleeve, but… you get the picture.

On mornings like this one, since I can actually see my own breath, I begin to notice my own breathing patterns during the run.  I know I have shared some of this “wisdom” in the past, however, it looks like I have now developed a peculiar new breathing method.  I am now taking a bunch of smaller breaths in, followed by one major breath out through the mouth, accompanied by a monstrous noise, as if blowing on a hot food dish to cool it down.

It would have looked really strange to an observer, had there been any around to witness me running around with a blue (frozen) right hand, loudly blowing air out through my mouth every couple of steps.  Hey, I suppose it may all sound a bit weird, but something in this whole system is definitely working, because my body feels broken and abused for the next 48 hours.  Is that how the athletes feel the day after the big event?  Isn’t that how we all hope to feel after visiting the gym?  I guess I will never know.  But for now, I will simply continue doing the only thing I know and will

Keep it running!